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July 20, 2005
Marc Cuban at AlwaysOn05
Fireside Chat with Marc Cuban, interviewed by Allen Delattre At Always On 2005 July 20, 2005
I thought it was an interesting
discussion. Here are the points I found most noteworthy:
- blog search: I agree with Marc’s comments about the growing importance of
Blog Search, and his view that the aggregators will capture the market
value from the long tail of blog search. I personally like
www.blogpulse.com the best. Cuban’s new IceRocket seems to be direct
knockoff. Blogpulse gets my vote for best blog search engine not just
because my friends from Whizbang days were the founders of this service,
but because it has the best analytics and, unlike Technorati, it hasn’t
yet hit a scaling barrier. - Releasing movies simultaneously in all channels: I think that’s a great
idea, and it is exciting to see Marc Cuban in a position to lead the way
here. - Interactive TV and accountable TV advertising models: I agree with him that models for TV advertising are going to change, and that this will be enabled by interactive TV (and time shifting services like Tivo). The 30 second
spot is dying (George Gilder made a comment about this in a preceding
session at Always On), and new measurable forms of advertising are being
developed to take its place. I don’t expect it will be as simple as
pay-for-placement, but I do think internet and tv advertising models will
come together in some interesting blend over the next few years. - Dennis Rodman and Paris Hilton’s intuitive sense for media
manipulation: indeed! (I hope that previous reference doesn’t cause my blog
to become misclassified…).
Below are my (mostly raw) notes from this session.
Notes by Barney Pell
Marc Cuban: Government can’t do innovation. Hollywood is even worse
NBA general manager’s #1 job is not to win championships, but to keep his
job. Similarly, Hollywood managers #1 job is to keep their job, and meet
all the starlets you can. That friction helps.
No matter what DRM you do on content, it will still get cracked, and
they’ll say it’s not strong enough. For getting content out, the most
important issues are really about control.
For control on content: our NBA team tried to push out own branded
merchandise with own online store, whereas other teams were supposed to sell
through NBA store only. We sold on our own and did better than them. They
tried to wheel us back in.
q: There was a survey for average consumers, on “what is holding you back?” They said
the solutions being offered in the market are way too complex for the aavg
consumer to want to buy or figure it out and get value from it.
Cuban: I don’t agree. How many use vchip, PIP, etc? Tech is alwasy too slow,
too expnsive, and too ahrd to use. but then prices gets to the point where
as long as it does one thing it doesn’t matter. We used to look at someone
with cellphone as gauche.
Also, surveying people: it’s not the job of the consumer to think what best
solutions are to the potential needs in the future. People don’t think about
ultimate tech solutions. Consumers follow the path of least resistance. To
talk to yhour friends and family, the path is the cellphone and becoming
cheap enough to use it. Overall use complexity doesn’t matter as long as
you can do the one thing you want to do. So focus groups are always
misleading…
That brings us to blogs.icerocket.com. At this point in time in the
blogosphere, there’s all this discussion about ability to searchblogs, tag
blogs. technorati has been self-proclaimed for tag searches. we’re changing
icerocket name to blogscour. and there’s blogpulse and others. they allow
you to search for references in blogs. So I can search for myself,
mavericks, to see what consuemrs are saying as representative of consumer
consensus.
This is different from search, as the’re a real-time nature to blogs, and a
passion to blogs. I did a search on “Marc Cuban Pittsburgh pirates”. Or
track our movie about Enron, tracking consumer sentiment. When I search for
these on Google or Yahoo I see the same results every time. Icerock enables
me to know everyday what’s being added to the blog consciousness. That’s a
unique differentiating point going on in search right now. Depending on
where blogs go, how much traction and usage they get from readers, will be
interesing to see the balance between people searching for relevant info vs
timely info. Google has been able to handle one but not the other, so that’s
why we got into blog search.
q: blogging is growing virally, exponentially. do you see that becoming the
defacto way people communicate about breaking issues. how will my mother
become a blogger?
Cuban: people will still go to outlets they trust and relate to. Fox, CNN are
brands, trusted outlets. But there’s also a fragmentation or long tail
issue. More people watch cable than broadcast tv, as there are more
channels. For bloggers it’s more difficult to stand out as there are so
many choices. For bloggers to standout and become branded, you have to go
outside the medium, outside blogging, and promote yourself just like
everyone else. It’s easier right now, as it’s new and different. But soon
it will just be another medium where people have to compete and work to
stand out. This also really leads to aggregators. The individuals won’t
have a marketing budget, but on an aggregated basis they’ll have the
marketing muscle. The aggregated blogs will be marketed as a group. That’s
where I see a lot of value.
q: What’s your position on podcasting?
Cuban: I have 2 articles about podcasting on my blog. The economics are
analogous to streaming for individual podcasters. It’s different because
with streaming you’re tied to a device, vs podcasting you’re
mobile. Regardless, it’s a long tail phenomena. Podcasting for individuals
will be a labor of love and fun, but your revenue per hour won’t be minimum
wage. With that said, it’s a viable distribution medium for existing media,
like Howard Stern, etc who already have name and demand. We’ll take HDNet
world report and make a podcast, it’s a great brand extender. But for an
individual to make a business out of it, podcasting is hot, easy, cheap to
distribute, but you’ll be long tail so it’s difficult to make money out of it.
Marc Canter: This man is fighting the fight for us to change hollywood. talk
about releasing a movie on movies, theatres, and dvd at the same time!
Cuban: My partner Todd Wagner and I own several movie theatres, like Landmark,
geared toward more adult audiences (not disney films). And HdNet, multiple million
subscribers. And HDNet films, where our first move was “Enron: the smartest guys in
the room”, which was a real success.
Traditionally the gates are defined by hollywood. Most money made in the
first week. Studios then make a separate push when go to dvd window. Our
feeling was, why not just release in all forms at the same time and let
consumers decide how they want to receive it. HdNet movies, HdNet
subscribers, theatres, embarcadero, or on dvd on the same date. We’ll make
you pay a premium for the dvd as prefer theatre initially for costs, but
we’ll give you the choice. I don’t care if you buy a movie on a keychain,
flashdrive, etc: I want to provide it to you in whatever format you want.
Hollywood thinks they have the right formats for you, but we think consumers
want to choose. Some theatres say they won’t carry out movies as they
believe in day and date. I say: look at the Mavericks, every game is sold
out yet they’re on TV at the same time. People want to get out of the
house. Good things will happen.
q: IPTV, how fast to have it in my house?
Cuban: If you have direct tv or dish, you have it now. Not a question of will
you have it, but question of when. Over next 12 months will start to take
off, as Fox will really push it in direct tv. And you can experience it in
video on demand (VOD). Pay per click, cost per action, will translate to
TV. To fulfill that you need some form of interactive tv.
IPTV is just a diferent way of fulfilling demand. However you design your
network, as streaming, broadcast, or internet… Distribution over internet
won’t be as big as it could have been, as it fell apart with the failure of
the multicast initiative, which was far more bandwidth efficient. They all just
thought it wouldn’t be a big deal for a while. Now that while is here, and
having to deliver everything on unicast or p2p bittorrent type basis will
slow that down.
q: how many of your potforlio companies are showing up in asia?
Cuban: Zero. Complexity rises as travel rises. It’s easier to do deals closer to home
even though there are some cost savings working it remotely.
q: When will you make hdnet and hdmovies available on cable?
Cuban: They are available now. but not on comcast… so call comcast and ask them
to carry these! HDNet will also have the NHL in high def.
q: How was Dennis Rodman as a houseguest?
Cuban: He just lied around and watched cartoon network. The two people I
learned the most about marketing from were Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Dennis
Rodman, and Paris Hilton. Dennis didn’t always know why what he did with
the media was the right thing, but when you listen to him you see he was
right. And Paris too. They played the media like a fiddle and know just what
do to.
[Tag: AlwaysOn2005]
Posted by barney at July 20, 2005 7:44 pm
This entry was posted in Digital Media, Search, Venture Capital, Weblogs
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